Swimming Through Air

Fishing photographer Pat Ford has been chasing tarpon for more than 25 years

Spring is here, and tarpon are on the move — if only the wind would lie down a bit. Photographer and tarpon nut Pat Ford, who took these photos, is somewhere in the Keys right now, looking to reunite with one of his high-flying finned friends.

“They swim through the air, upside down and right side up,” says Ford, who got tarpon fever in 1990 while fishing with Capt. Bill Curtis. “If there’s a jump a fish can possibly make, a tarpon will make it. They’re just crazy and crazy-looking — prehistoric, like dinosaurs.”